“Sadists trying to be nice.” They are all around us. They want to “save the planet,” so they outlaw incandescent lightbulbs. They want to help the poor, so they devise government systems whose effect is to keep the poor in perpetual dependence. They want to “spread the wealth around,” so they impose ruinous taxes on those who produce wealth, thus assuring that there is less wealth to spread around.
And so on. You can’t understand what has come to be called liberalism (a linguistic oddity, since it is so markedly illiberal) without understanding that at its core lies an unquenchable benevolence fired by unsurpassable presumption. It is their union, benevolence and presumption, that makes such a toxic cocktail and leads to the sadism Will descries in the tax code. It is part of what James Piereson, in a memorable essay for The Weekly Standard, called “punitive liberalism.” “From the time of John Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 to Jimmy Carter’s election in 1976,” Piereson writes,
the Democratic party was gradually taken over by a bizarre doctrine that might be called Punitive Liberalism. According to this doctrine, America had been responsible for numerous crimes and misdeeds through its history for which it deserved punishment and chastisement. White Americans had enslaved blacks and committed genocide against Native Americans. They had oppressed women and tyrannized minority groups, such as the Japanese who had been interned in camps during World War II. They had been harsh and unfeeling toward the poor. By our greed, we had despoiled the environment and were consuming a disproportionate share of the world’s wealth and resources. We had coddled dictators abroad and violated human rights out of our irrational fear of communism.
As I noted in an earlier PJM column, Piereson’s great insight is to stress the punitive, the chastising side of this orgy of guilt. Liberals like President Obama come telling us they are making a better world; they omit to mention that what they mean by “a better world” is a world that is distinctly worse for certain groups, in particular groups that liberals decided had hitherto been unfairly privileged. “The punitive aspects of this doctrine,” Piereson writes,
were made especially plain in debates over the liberals’ favored policies. If one asked whether it was really fair to impose employment quotas for women and minorities, one often heard the answer, “White men imposed quotas on us, and now we’re going to do the same to them!” Was busing of school children really an effective means of improving educational opportunities for blacks? A parallel answer was often given: “Whites bused blacks to enforce segregation, and now they deserve to get a taste of their own medicine!” Do we really strengthen our own security by undercutting allied governments in the name of human rights, particularly when they are replaced by openly hostile regimes (as in Iran and Nicaragua)? “This”–the answer was–“is the price we have to pay for coddling dictators.” And so it went. Whenever the arguments were pressed, one discovered a punitive motive behind most of their policies.
It was, as Piereson notes, one of Ronald Reagan’s great achievements to overcome, at least temporarily, the emotional mandate of punitive liberalism. Piereson quotes from Reagan’s speech at the Republican Convention of 1980: “My fellow citizens,” Reagan said, “I utterly reject that view. The American people, the most generous on earth, who created the highest standard of living, are not going to accept the notion that we can only make a better world for others by moving backwards ourselves.” What a breath of fresh air, especially after four years of Jimmy “Mr. Malaise” Carter!
The question that confronts us now is what reservoirs of confidence we still can draw upon. Clearly, Reagan did not vanquish punitive liberalism, he merely rebuffed it momentarily. Punitive Liberalism is alive and well in the Democratic Party, at The New York Times, in our courts and universities. Sadists trying to be nice. What would really be nice is if another Ronald Reagan were to appear and remind us that we cannot move forward by moving backwards.
We agree in principle with Mr. Will’s suggestions about income tax, but would reverse the proportions. That is, we would tax those making under a hundred thousand dollars at 25% and those making over one hundred thousand at 10%. Our thinking is, this would provide impetus for Americans to reach the magic plateau of 100,000 dollars. It would reinvigorate the American dream and, in the long run, as tens of millions of Americans reached the magic plateau, would actually increase tax revenues.
Yours sincerely,
The Playdo Institute
Handel Glassberg, President
“They want to help the poor, so they devise government systems whose effect is to keep the poor in perpetual dependence”
Ah yes, that perpetual dependence guarantees self-perpetuation of liberalism’s existance. Their greatest fear is that liberalism will become obsolete.
The Byzantine tax code provides work not only for accountants, but for a huge government bureaucracy. How many of our tax dollars goes to imposing this monstrosity on us and to collecting the taxes?
I recall that a 1993 study conducted by 3 U.S Senators, one of whom was Sen Rudman, concluded that the U.S. Tax Code costs the private sector 40 cents for every dollar actually collected in taxes due to the costs of compliance with IRS regulations.
In other words, the actual burden of the tax system on the country is 1.4 times the money collected.
Is it possible? Is it truly possible that I might live to see a reinvention of our labyrinthine tax code.
My, oh, my! What a day that would be?
Can you imagine how that would completely turn our national “tax conversation” on its ear! How could politicians operate, if they weren’t able to buy the votes of special-interest blocs by promising tax breaks, or tax credits, or tax rebates, or tax shelters, or tax exemptions, or …
Wow! This will now be part of my daily prayer: God, please bring forth the leaders who can drive this rebirth!
Let’s roll!
FLASH!!
This Brand New Video Blows a Huge Gaping Hole in Obama’s Cap and Tax Scheme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVm5-6H_sH4
It is more than sadism. It is about control. If we adopted a “fair” tax, prosperity would spread like wildfire.
Alas, prosperity is too dangerous to be entrusted to the common folk. We have the progressive tax code to keep the serfs in check.
Which is why there’s a large and growing underground economy. And by the way when it (the underground economy) gets big enough it becomes a necessary component and you just have to accept it. Ask any Italian.
…one of Ronald Reagan’s great achievements to overcome, at least temporarily, the emotional mandate of punitive liberalism.
Quote RR all you want, Rog. Fact is that he raised taxes and expanded government. (But the guy could really talk. I mean, it was almost as if he were an actor or something.)
The IRS, along with the BATF, the DEA, the EPA, the FAA and the Fed, are evil institutions that need to be abolished.
Roger, I’ll do you one better- pass the Fair Tax bill to eliminate all income taxes and replace it with a consumption tax that has half the compliance cost of a VAT and 1/16 of the compliance cost of the current system.
flat tax will never happen for a single massive reason; the only true difference between the conservative and liberal factions of Govt are in how they view and use the tax system, and then manipulate it to benefit their financial backers
A flat tax would eliminate the system of payback to their backers…without that system, there is no gain to either side.
You are mistaken regarding the source of the problem. The IRS is going nuts trying to make what Congress dumps on them work.
#14 . . . Yes, you are totally correct . . . I have had the honorable experience of setting across from one such nut, an imbecile, an idiot who spent more time on the phone asking the supervising auditor questions about the paper work than addressing the reason I was setting in the IRS office. It scares the poop out of me to have to think that each year I submit paper work to such a weird bunch of idiots.
“liberalism (a linguistic oddity, since it is so markedly illiberal)” Not so odd. The thing with which liberals are liberal, and with which conservatives are conservative, is the use, or threat, of government violence against the citzens. That, I believe, is what the American middle should be taught by the example of this administration and should be repeated by every conservative seeking to explain that we are in fact the middle, not an extreme. All of these solutions (HCR, stimulus, cap and trade) ultimately rely on the government’s use of force, or threat of the use of force, to coerce compliance or surrender of taxes.